In the prior art there are several solutions known for manufacturing floor boards, floor panels or other panels with edges following natural curvature of the wooden material.
Swiss patent CH698020B1 (Peter Herzog-Schymura, publ. 30 Apr. 2009) discloses a process of manufacturing solid wooden boards from multiple adjacent wooden elements, which are connected by the edges along the connecting lines following as closely as possible the natural curvature of the elements. The wooden board to be manufactured is for example a table top, a flooring element (i.e. floor panel) or a planar furniture element, etc.
European patent application EP2295215A1 (Rudolf Meyer, publ. 16Mar. 2011) discloses a method and device for manufacturing solid wood plates from unedged timber planks. The device comprises a detection unit such as a digital camera, which is used for scanning unedged planks and said data is stored in a computer database, and a computer device for calculating on the basis of the data stored in the computer database a cutting line for two adjacent planks having a curvilinear edge. The device includes a cutting device for cutting out said cutting lines and a corresponding working station for joining said cut planks into plates.
German utility model DE29812919U1 (Willi Schmidt, publ. 17 Dec. 1998) discloses plates made of several planks having curvilinear edges, where two adjacent planks include for a tongue-and-groove joint at the edge of one plank a tongue and the other plank includes a groove at the corresponding edge.
German patent application DE102007006631A1 (Dieter Karsten Herrmann, publ. 16 Aug. 2007) discloses a process for manufacturing of flooring, wall or ceiling covering from the planks having natural curvature. In this solution every single plank also is scanned and the data obtained so is stored in the computer database. The data obtained by scanning includes among other things the full-size image of the plank. For example by using CAD-program scanned images of the planks are placed on the floor area image to be covered and into the edges of the adjacent planks cutting lines are generated in a semiautomatic or full-automatic mode. Every single plank is then cut out in the CNC cutting machine according to the cutting lines.
None of the above methods are suitable for producing flooring modules comprising elements with curvilinear edges following the natural curvature of the planks from which said elements are made of, where modules are consisting a predetermined number of elements and for producing of a every single element are selected namely these timber planks which shape suits best for producing specific element, i.e. the needed shape of the element is obtained with minimum machining.